A chase game is actually closer to reality than we think. Well... the idea for it at least. The technology is out there... we would just need some hard core programmers.
As I see it... there are several components to the game engine.
#1 the Landscape/Terrain Engine (3d). With technology out now, we would probably be best off using some sort of flight simulator engine such as Microsoft Flight Sim 2004. A generic terrain file for the Plains could be made including towns etc.
#2 The convection engine. There are many smaller scale storm models that have been used to model supercells... any of these will suffice.
#3 The Initiation engine. Many of the storm scale models simply start with a warm bubble. The initation engine would use randomness/environmental variables to figure out where bubbles would be introduced into the model. Several scenarios could be imput into the model.... warm front days... dryline days... etc. Using randomness... no 2 setups should be alike. In addition, I would think some days could result in squalllines/multicells while others would be more descrete.
#4 (and probably the haderst part) Is drawing the storms. Many of the models output a reflectivity output. Using this and lots of (if this is going on do this) it would be possible. For example.. set a storm base height based off the environmental variables. If vorticity exceeds XXX number at lowest grid of model... create wall cloud. If vorticity gets even higher near the surface... drop a tube. If reflectivity is greater than 50dbz then the occurance of hail is a higher probability etc...
And here is the coolest thing. Stick a good UI and driving sim on top of all of this. Setup gas stations etc.... you can do all the financial stuff like Shane suggested...... You could even mimic internet data connections!!! and since we are already running a model in the background... you could "connect" to get the latest reflectivity output from the model quite easily. Awesome!!!
Aaron
As I see it... there are several components to the game engine.
#1 the Landscape/Terrain Engine (3d). With technology out now, we would probably be best off using some sort of flight simulator engine such as Microsoft Flight Sim 2004. A generic terrain file for the Plains could be made including towns etc.
#2 The convection engine. There are many smaller scale storm models that have been used to model supercells... any of these will suffice.
#3 The Initiation engine. Many of the storm scale models simply start with a warm bubble. The initation engine would use randomness/environmental variables to figure out where bubbles would be introduced into the model. Several scenarios could be imput into the model.... warm front days... dryline days... etc. Using randomness... no 2 setups should be alike. In addition, I would think some days could result in squalllines/multicells while others would be more descrete.
#4 (and probably the haderst part) Is drawing the storms. Many of the models output a reflectivity output. Using this and lots of (if this is going on do this) it would be possible. For example.. set a storm base height based off the environmental variables. If vorticity exceeds XXX number at lowest grid of model... create wall cloud. If vorticity gets even higher near the surface... drop a tube. If reflectivity is greater than 50dbz then the occurance of hail is a higher probability etc...
And here is the coolest thing. Stick a good UI and driving sim on top of all of this. Setup gas stations etc.... you can do all the financial stuff like Shane suggested...... You could even mimic internet data connections!!! and since we are already running a model in the background... you could "connect" to get the latest reflectivity output from the model quite easily. Awesome!!!
Aaron
